


Value of Will

by lynndyre



Category: Star Ocean: The Last Hope
Genre: Gen, M/M, Missing Scene
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-23
Updated: 2013-12-23
Packaged: 2018-01-05 16:50:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1096271
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lynndyre/pseuds/lynndyre
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>"I was the sole survivor of the battle with the Phantoms, and he saved me."</i> </p>
<p>The Aquila arrives at the scene of Eldar's destruction.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Value of Will

**Author's Note:**

  * For [SwordofRebecca](https://archiveofourown.org/users/SwordofRebecca/gifts).



_"I was the sole survivor of the battle with the Phantoms, and he saved me."_

The Aquila swept between the Eldarian evacuation fleet and the Phantom ships, her new Morphus-designed guns flaring under Hiro's commands. Crowe's hand clenched against the edge of the console.

"Joe, what's the status --" Crowe broke off, speechless, as Eldar's sun bloomed outwards in a beautiful, horrifying wash of colour. 

"Son of a bitch." Hwang banked hard, keeping the sun on their forward screen. Joe's stylus hit the console and rolled off onto the deck with a muted clatter. At the fore gunnery console Hiro clutched the controls, then resumed firing as the Phantom ships began peeling away, disappearing back into space.

The evacuation ships were away. But not unscathed, and not without heavy losses. 

The planet was gone.

The Aquila floated in a graveyard. The wreckage of one of the great Eldarian ships fell away past them, sparking as it broke apart, venting atmosphere and corpses into space. 

The whisper of Crowe's glove was audible as he clenched it into a fist. "Joe. Is anyone still alive?"

"I don't- I can't find anyone, sir. No- there is-- Hwang, at 8 o'clock! The purple ship. It's drifting, but not depressurized, and there's a reading."

"Hail them. Ohta, please scan farther out." 

From the left rear engineering console, Eddie was still watching the viewscreen, her hands hanging lax on the controls. "It's still expanding. I didn't even know you could – do that. To a sun." 

Crowe stood up, circled to rest a hand on Eddie's shoulder. He gave it a gentle squeeze. "You're the best with our new equipment, make sure we're ready to retreat, best possible speed."

"Aye-aye, sir."

"There's no response, Captain," Joe reported. Opposite him, Ohta shook his head.

He clapped Joe's shoulder, and Ohta's, and turned for the bridge doors. "Dock us with that ship, Hwang. Then you have the command. I'm not letting anyone else die if we can help it."

_"Blame your own regrets."_

The inner door of the Eldarian airlock was jammed, warped from heat and impact damage. Ohta's energy lance joined Crowe's blades cutting their way in. When they broke through, Crowe was grateful for the Aquila's own airlock behind them. The Eldarian craft might not have depressurized, but it was on fire, and the reek of burning electronics mixed with the harsh, desperate smell of seared alien flesh.

His glove did nothing to block the stench, or the gases, and Ohta choked beside him. Crowe slammed the heel of his hand onto the belt releases for his cavalry skirt, and tore it free.

"Go back, Ohta. Get a proper mask."

Ohta coughed. "Captain, you-"

"Bring me one too." 

It was unfair, but something told Crowe not to wait. As Ohta hit the seal on the Aquila's airlock door, he covered his lower face with the reinforced fabric, and pushed through the inner door into the alien ship.

He couldn't heal a body, even himself, not like Reimi. He couldn't inspire, the way Edge touched hearts.  
But Crowe was the first seed, the first hope. Body, heart- mind.

Crowe reached. Yelled. Without a voice, that would have choked and stifled in the burning air. Without wasting the oxygen, already rapidly depleted by fire. Crowe called out.

Anguished confusion and purple despair answered.

Crowe pressed his hand to the panel beside a bulkhead door, ducked back from the rush of heated air. The bridge was in ruins. Beside the center console, an Eldarian man with silver grey hair sat bleeding, eyes focused beyond the viewscreen, to where the planet no longer was.

He didn't offer any words. There weren't any, not for that. But when he reached out, the other man reached back, and his grip was strong against Crowe's glove.

The Eldarian captain was unconscious before they reached the airlock, but reassuringly heavy and alive in Crowe's arms.

  
_"Now that you've survived this, you have to fight until the very end."_

They caught up with Commander Gahgan's ship and the evacuation fleet hours later. Captain Arumat P. Thanatos had been woken, introduced, and was quartered with Crowe, as he and Hwang held the only cabins with an empty bunk. Plans had to be made for Aeos, and for the new long-haul segments. For where any of this fitted within the Aquila's original mission, which Crowe was beginning to fear he'd left completely behind as the needs of the universe pushed them forwards. 

When Crowe returned to his cabin it was ship's night. Arumat was seated on the edge of his bunk, forearms on his knees. The aroma pot on Crowe's desk was still leaching lemon-scented pink into the air, just as Ohta had left it, but whether it had an effect or not Crowe couldn't tell. Every time he closed his eyes he saw the phantoms attacking the evacuation ships, or firing into the Eldarian sun, until it broke and burst and cannibalised its own planets.

At a guess, Arumat wasn't having to close his eyes.

"Is there anything you need?"

Arumat's hands clenched before he looked up, and his eye shone red. Not the skin of his eyelids or the whites of his eyes, the iris itself was scarlet, and there was a matching reddish glow behind the greyish fall of his hair. He blinked, and the red disappeared back into amber. "I need-" His body tensed, curled forward. "I need something to fight. But there is nothing left."

Crowe had been on-shift for almost 20 hours, conscious for longer. His head ached with tension.

"Spar with me." Maybe he could help them both.

When Arumat rose and crossed to join him in the doorway, he left his scythe beside the bunk. Deactivated. Deliberate. Crowe snapped free both his blades and set them beside the aroma pot. With less than a foot between them, Crowe imagined he could feel the heat of Arumat's bare chest. He inhaled, tasting the lemon friendship-lure of the pot, mixing with the smell of Arumat's alien skin. He swallowed.

"We can lock the observation deck and go for as long as you need."

_"I'll be there to witness the moment you finally burn out."_

Crowe felt the pulse of Arumat's fighting spirit against his own, matched himself to that alien beat. His feet were quicker to move, Arumat was stronger. They had nearly the same reach. Arumat tended to use his knees, in close-contact blocks, rather than his arms, but was still faster than anyone else on this ship except Crowe himself. 

Those poison-honey eyes had shaded in and out of red as they fought. Crowe watched them, but it seemed to be unconscious, and didn't telegraph any of Arumat's attacks- rather it had happened when they paused for breath.

The anger that drove Captain Thanatos also hobbled him. Crowe felt its echo, straining inside his chest, following his pulse. The whole thing was so destructive, so senseless. And now a whole world-- He pinned Arumat once, caught a knee to his side, released him as alien muscles bunched and twisted under his hands. Not enough. Not yet.

The spar turned brutal after that, as if Arumat has abandoned all his constraints, now that Crowe had proven strong enough to match him. Blows came faster, bruised deeper, and Crowe could feel his headache intensified then chased away by the pounding of his blood. He'd hit his limit and gone past it, and the rush of endorphins is enough to mask the death of a world, for a little while.

It had to be enough for Arumat, too.

Crowe's arms were heavy, leaden. He went to one knee, forced himself up again, dancing back then sideways, stepping through Arumat's too-wide guard to break his center. The alien went down hard, off balance, glove fisting in Crowe's uniform shirt. 

He didn't rise. "You should have let me die with my people."

Crowe slid down beside him, covering the clutching hand with his own. "You can't die yet-- you've still got work to do."

It could have been a platitude, but Crowe meant it. Felt it, deep in his gut. The kind of guy who could make it this far, who could live through this much, even if he didn't want to... Crowe would lend him every bit of strength he could.

Arumat's long grey bangs had fallen away from the right side of his face, and the eye on that side watered, weaker against the ship lighting. But both were clear, pure honey amber again, without a trace of red.

_"He valued my will more than anyone else. In the end, it served to save my very soul."_


End file.
